Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

Audiobooks

Another masterclass weekend coming up!

Last month, I was privileged to participate in a Women in Animation masterclass in New York City with Pat Fraley and Hillary Huber. Tomorrow, I’m jetting off to the other coast for their audiobook masterclass in Los Angeles!

The Saturday class filled so quickly when Pat announced it that he opened a session on Sunday. I am grateful to have snagged one of the 12 spots in the Sunday class.

While I’ve completed 2 commercial audiobooks in my studio, I am very excited at this opportunity to learn better audiobook performance and marketing techniques from Pat, Hillary and their guest instructors. In addition, we will be creating a new demo! In preparation for the class, Pat sent an .mp3 which demonstrated numerous styles of audiobook reads, and he gave us guidelines about selecting copy for our demo.

Check back here for the complete updates on this story from your roving reporter, who will soon be on the streets of LA! 🙂

 

Congrats to the Audies winners!

Last week, I was on vacation with Drew in Ft. Lauderdale. Otherwise, I would have liked to attend the annual Audio Publishers Association (APA) meeting and Book Expo America conference, held this year in Washington, DC.

The Audie Awards are juried awards in the audiobook and spoken word industry for the finest work in numerous categories, similar to the Grammy, Oscar and Emmy awards given in other mediums. The APA and Audiofile Magazine created a wonderful multimedia presentation that contains sound clips and reviews for all of the finalists in this year’s Audie competition. I’m thrilled to see that my friends Barbara Rosenblat and Mel Foster were the narrators of award-winning titles, while another friend Alan Sklar scored 3 nominations.

Producing quality audiobooks is a major undertaking, and I congratulate all of the people who participated in creating the books nominated for the 2006 Audie Awards. I hope to be with all of you next year in New York!

 

Harry Potter – 1, Censorship – 0

I heard on the news that the Gwinnett County Board of Education unanimously ruled to keep the Harry Potter books on the school library shelves. A local mother who reportedly had not even read the books had started a movement to have the books banned because she claimed they encouraged witchcraft.

As a citizen who lives in this county, a suburb of Atlanta with the largest school system in the state of Georgia, I am pleased to see the Board’s ruling on this matter. The Harry Potter books are an unparalleled phenomenon in encouraging kids to actually READ. I could understand if the mother thought that the extraordinary narrator Jim Dale had cast a spell on her kids when they heard his captivating voice create over 100 memorable characters in the audio versions of those books. I think every book was nominated for a Grammy, and I know Dale’s enchanting performance won at least one of those coveted awards. If you haven’t heard him, you can download all the books on iTunes.

I wonder if this same mother is as vigilant in monitoring the video games that her children play. As a voice actor who has had roles in 2 games and hopes to work in many more, I certainly am not opposed to the video game industry. However, I do think that many games glorify violence and are not suitable for children. I don’t have children, but I believe that parents should select games and other materials that improve their children’s minds.

The Harry Potter books do improve childrens’ minds. As the kids read, they are using their imaginations. Once you start to use your imagination, you learn how to solve problems, and you realize that anything is possible.